Benson, Sir Frank Robert

Benson, Sir Frank Robert (1858–1939), English actor-manager, best remembered for the Shakespearian company with which he visited Stratford-upon-Avon annually from 1886 to 1916, appearing in a repertory of seven or eight plays during the summer festival there, and at other times travelling all over the provinces, thus keeping the plays always before the public and providing a good training-school for a number of young players. While at Oxford he had been a prominent member of the OUDS. He made his first appearance on the professional stage in 1882, at the Lyceum under Irving, playing Paris in Romeo and Juliet. In the following year he formed his own company, and in due course he directed it in all Shakespeare's plays with the exception of Titus Andronicus and Troilus and Cressida. He was a capable actor, with handsome aquiline features and much of the air of an ‘antique Roman’. He is the only actor to be knighted actually in a theatre.